I don't much time to speak at length, but I'm sure SM will divide the community more than any other game in the series.

Game had great production values and looks good for a Wii game. Story was interesting. Didn't like the Raw Shock areas, found them frustrating and I kept hitting myself with the damn cord tying to shake the buggers off (do yourself a favor and buy a wireless nunchuck). Sometimes I could never get the Raw Shocks off, either. My cursor would always be way off screen by this time and I'd have trouble recalibrating my controls. I got better at it towards the end of the game, but it didn't really work for me. And when the Otherworld isn't present, you're under no threat. Liked the phone alright, but why can it only save 10 photos?!?!

I gotta go, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Doesn't really feel like Silent Hill much at all, but it's an interesting game. And if you don't like motion control, I'd say hold out for the ps2 port

Story-I thought the story was interesting but once again the ending can be taken many different ways.
Gameplay-I had a little trouble with the motions controls but I never had any problems turning. I never had any trouble climbing walls faster or anything like that.
Puzzles-way too simple. If I can figure them out without resulting to a guide then there's something wrong. The only puzzle I had a lot of trouble with is the shadow puzzle at the High School. Other than that it took me little time to know what to do.
Graphics-Looked great. Had no problems with any glitches or anything except maybe one time when i got a voice mail but the scream when you get too close to the ghost moments was still going so I couldn't hear it.

Overall, I say it was a great game and I enjoyed it. I think 8.6 is a good score for this game but no higher than 9.[/i]

Story: I thought the story was fantastic, though I severely dislike the idea that Silent Hill is just a normal town; I personally think Harry was a real being and interacted with real people, somewhat like Maria did.

Gameplay: I thought it was great, save for some minor annoyances with rotating things and the 3D plane.

Puzzles: NEEDED TO BE HARDER, DEFINITELY. The best puzzle was the gumball puzzle. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the chase in the school due to the variety.

Graphics: Great, for the most part.

I thought it was a fantastic game, and it managed to feel like Silent Hill to me, though the chase sequences need more variety, the puzzles need to be tougher, and the ice motif could be a bit scarier.

_________________Beyond the Joystick - game reviews, plot recaps, and morehttp://beyond-the-joystick.blogspot.com - Also on Tumblr!

Story: The story is amazing. If you enjoyed the stories is the first 3 Silent Hills, this game will be a joy to you. It has a tight narrative, well acted and superbly paced. The game play and story fit together like a glove. The use of the psychology tests to tailor the details of the story to the specific player are used masterfully, and fit easily within the whole narrative. The characters are all compelling and multi-layered. A fantastic tale for any medium, this game should be played by anyone who is a fan of psychological thrillers.

Game Play: The game play is composed of three "modes" or sequence types. The first type is the wandering type. You search around the town, solve puzzles, take pictures, and interact with various other characters. This is the mode that most advances the plot, and in my opinion, the most fun to play. You get to have a lot of interaction, and just being able to passively observe all the details in the environments is a lot of fun. The puzzles are challenging, but not aggravating, and unlike some prior SHs none of them require strange out of game knowledge to complete without a guide. The atmosphere during these is somber, and moody, and more than a little spooky.

The second type are the Psychiatrist's office where you interact with a doctor, who puts the events of the game in a very psychological light, and presents you with psych tests in order to judge what kind of a person you are, and what to throw out at you in the game. These sections are really intriguing, and add a lot to the story. They're also a little bit disorienting, as you are thrown out of the action and onto the couch; however, this is clearly intentional, and serves to punctuate the events of the game.

The third type are the "nightmare chase" sequences. This is where you drop everything, and run away from unkillable monsters. It's intense, and panicky, and more than a little frustrating, especially if you don't have a good sense of direction as the paths are very twisting, and non-linear.

Graphics: The graphics in the game are surprisingly beautiful and detailed. I found it a shame that some much of the world had to be run through at high speed, because I spent a lot of time in the wandering sequences just enjoying all of the gorgeous detail in the environments. The snow and ice were especially pretty and actually looked real. The flashlight similarly shed light in a realistic manner and threw neat shadows all over the place. The character model's were very good, although Harry's face seemed just a touch rubbery (especially without glasses on).

Controls: The wii controls are... a mixed bag, from my point of view. On the one hand, controlling the flashlight was a joy. Using it to *steer* however, was not, and I found myself running in all directions, and at a disadvantage because of my shaky hands. It was also hard to turn during the chase sequences. Shaking off monsters worked really well, although it was tiring; it was difficult at first, but after I got the hang of it simulating shaking off monsters with the wiimote was really very immersive. Likewise I found the cellphone menu to be well implemented and easy to use.

Music and Sound: While not quite as fantastic as the music in previous Silent Hill games, it's still *really good*. It fit the mood well, and was used in a minimalist way that fit the tone of each scene. I quite like the soundtrack, although mostly the vocal tracks.

Overall: The game is a fine example of the series. While the lack of combat is a huge thing to adapt to, the system fits the game. In fact, all of the elements really gel into one great experience. The game is short, but extremely well paced, and has immense replay value because of the psych profile system and multiple endings. If you are a fan of horror, play this game!

please forgive me as i write this on the wii. my cpu is in the shop:( i like the think and spook factor but i wish there was more of the original premise attached. i actually miss allessa. i finished the game twice in one day and am now playing rnd 3.

Story: It was simply fantastic. Well-crafted, thought-provoking, emotionally draining, and filled to the brim with clever little nods... 10/10, easily!

Gameplay: Its exploration mode was very enjoyable but favored eerie atmosphere over genuine frights, while its nightmare stages were hellish and unnaturally frustrating. Also, the first-person bits were wonderfully executed.

Graphics: Beautiful and with a sharp eye for unusual details...

Controls: They work fine, though there were a few moments where motion refused to register.

Music and Sound: While being surprisingly mellow and restrained, the musical numbers are still just as effective in creating a thick atmosphere.

"Puzzles:" Though undeniably clever, many felt amateurish. There were a few memorable bits, such as the shadow puzzle, the gumball machine, and the toy piano.

Overall: It's a rock-solid Silent Hill experience. It's not a great place to start, but it definitely will please fans with its wicked inventiveness and fascinating storyline.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is fantastic. The gameplay and style may be very different, but this was a Silent Hill game through-and-through.

Just about all of the gameplay changes were improvements, and the atmosphere was down perfectly. The graphics are also the best I have seen from a Wii game, with only a few odd quirks here and there, such as an oddly flickering shadow on a character's upper lip. I especially loved the facial animations, and found the acting to be convincing most of the time. The Wii-mote was also used intuitively, and I really liked some of the more unique uses during a few scenes.

I thought I had the twist figured out, but the ending really caught me by surprise; the story was excellent and had me thinking and wondering the whole way through. I also really liked all of the characters that we met, and they didn't interfere with the feeling of isolation or loneliness at all, since they were always ripped away just as you were starting to feel comfortable.

I didn't find the nightmare sequences frustrating at all. They were hectic and disorienting, but I am sure that that is the effect Climax was going for. I feel that removing combat was a good decision, as combat was the worst part about the previous six games in the series, and its removal also serves to set Shattered Memories apart as a "true" survival/psychological-horror title. I was also glad to have a quick-turn ability. The last couple of horror games I played lacked this key feature, so I was very happy to find that quick-turning was possible in this game. I enjoyed making use of Harry's flashlight and all of the features on his cellphone. There was also a fair bit of exploration.

I didn't feel that the game was too short. My first playthrough was about 7.5-8 hours, but it didn't feel short at all. The plot was well-paced, and I feel that everything was resolved nicely(as well as things can be resolved in a Silent Hill game).

The atmosphere was down, and the game was creepy, but not nearly as creepy and disturbing as most of the previous games. I also found the music to not be nearly as memorable as that of the earlier games in the series. Which are my only significant complaints. A minor complaint would be that sometimes the music seemed like it was too quiet during a handful of exploration sections and nightmare scenes; not all of them though. I'm not talking about the music-less sections of the game, because those are very important to have in Silent Hill titles. I also feel that the aiming reticle for the flashlight could have been smaller. There could have been some puzzles that were a bit more mentally taxing as well.

Shattered Memories sits nicely next to Silent Hill 1 & 2 as one of the crown-jewels of the Silent Hill series.

Story: The story was the best since 4, I thought. And even then it's beaten only by SH2. The story was disturbing and deep, and I really liked their use of symbolism. The characters were nice, but I don't think I like how the different variations were so one dimensional. If you got 'slutty Cybil' that's just all you needed to know: she was slutty and her name was Cybil.

Gameplay: The gameplay was great. The exploration areas were varied and interesting and I'm so glad the sewer level was short. I'm so tired of the sewer levels in SH. The Nightmares were Nightmares, especially since my sense of direction was shot. Overall though, it was fantastic. Possibly the best game play of the series.

Puzzles: ... There were puzzles? Bring back the SH3-esque puzzles!

Graphics: Beautiful, one of the best looking Wii titles out there. The new color scheme is nice too, it didn't look like a SH but it still had the spirit.

_________________"I dreamt last night I saw youA single spark explosion negotiating with the deadBy the bright lights in some ICU on my chest you put your headand said "There you are.There you are.There's my heart..."

Missing since: 22 Dec 2003Notes left: 463Last seen at: Long Island, New York

These are just some things I wanted to say about the game. These are only my OPINION.

Was it just me or did it seem as if they screwed themselves with their own idea that they thought was so great. The only part in the game that I found was SUPPOSED to be scary at all was in the nightmare parts when you're in alternate. At first I thought "wow this is awesome it's really gonna scare me. running away from these things looking behind me. this game's great." then I noticed that when you die you respawn at the beginning of the nightmare, so where's the fear in that? If I die then I'll just try it again and again and again until I get it. If there were specific save points in this game I think that would've created more fear because if you die then going through your head will be "I'll have to start again from that save spot" thus creating fear of not wanting to die(or is this just me?).

This game just felt like it was made by a bunch of teenagers wanting to put in half naked women everywhere throughout the game (Pictures, sex references, etc)

I thought the Wii controls were pretty okay, but I wasn't really expecting great controls from the Wii to begin with, but they were pretty good. I loved the story as well in this game. I never would've continued playing this game if it weren't for the story that kept on making me want more and more and to know what's going on.
Now that Akira is gone and apparently an American team is now working on it, I have a feeling this might've been the last somewhat decent Silent Hill. I've been playing this game since the first one in 98" (99'?) and after the 4th one it seems to be going downhill into fire.

I wonder if this game was a way of Akira ending the series with the music because it wasn't even that great at all and I absolutely LOVE his music. I guess he didn't really care. I'll have to get the soundtrack to give that a more solid opinion

I give this game a 6.5/10 mainly for the story which I loved.
After playing this Silent Hill I really have to play 1, 2, and 3 again.

At first I thought "wow this is awesome it's really gonna scare me. running away from these things looking behind me. this game's great." then I noticed that when you die you respawn at the beginning of the nightmare, so where's the fear in that? If I die then I'll just try it again and again and again until I get it. If there were specific save points in this game I think that would've created more fear because if you die then going through your head will be "I'll have to start again from that save spot" thus creating fear of not wanting to die(or is this just me?).

What's the difference? Either way, you're restarting earlier than where you got. You always have to try again and again if you get yourself killed. Why does it matter if you physically hit the save point or not?

Quote:

This game just felt like it was made by a bunch of teenagers wanting to put in half naked women everywhere throughout the game (Pictures, sex references, etc)

All of that sex stuff is relevant to the plot, though.

Quote:

I wonder if this game was a way of Akira ending the series with the music because it wasn't even that great at all and I absolutely LOVE his music. I guess he didn't really care. I'll have to get the soundtrack to give that a more solid opinion

The soundtrack is short, but some of the tracks are his absolute best, in my opinion. Definitely some of the best Mary Elizabeth Glynn songs, at any rate.

Missing since: 22 Dec 2003Notes left: 463Last seen at: Long Island, New York

AuraTwilight wrote:

Quote:

At first I thought "wow this is awesome it's really gonna scare me. running away from these things looking behind me. this game's great." then I noticed that when you die you respawn at the beginning of the nightmare, so where's the fear in that? If I die then I'll just try it again and again and again until I get it. If there were specific save points in this game I think that would've created more fear because if you die then going through your head will be "I'll have to start again from that save spot" thus creating fear of not wanting to die(or is this just me?).

What's the difference? Either way, you're restarting earlier than where you got. You always have to try again and again if you get yourself killed. Why does it matter if you physically hit the save point or not?

That's why I said though "or is this just me?" I just feel that if I die and I have to restart far away or at a different point in the game more than 5 minutes away it will create more fear because I don't think anyone would want that to happen, rather than if I die I just restart 5 seconds away. The nightmare parts in the game ended up becoming more of a... I can't tink of the word, but just like a wall in the road. It got very annoying and I just didn't even want to do them anymore. I even said to my friend while I was playing "I wish there were coins or something that you would collect throughout the game and if you collected enough of them you can trade them to skip the nightmare parts." haha I just thought it was kinda funny. Every nightmare part looked EXACTLY the same.

Quote:

This game just felt like it was made by a bunch of teenagers wanting to put in half naked women everywhere throughout the game (Pictures, sex references, etc)

All of that sex stuff is relevant to the plot, though.

I do understand this, but I feel as if I played too big a role in it and it became an annoyance after awhile. I'm not trying to bash the game in all honesty. I'm just pointing out some things I didn't like at all which, in this case, seems to be almost all of it. I just don't want to be looked at as a hater, y'know?

Quote:

I wonder if this game was a way of Akira ending the series with the music because it wasn't even that great at all and I absolutely LOVE his music. I guess he didn't really care. I'll have to get the soundtrack to give that a more solid opinion

The soundtrack is short, but some of the tracks are his absolute best, in my opinion. Definitely some of the best Mary Elizabeth Glynn songs, at any rate.

Most of the music played in the game seemed rather annoying. ESPECIALLY in the woods right after you get out of the cop car when Cybil leaves. It will be quiet and then this really annoying noise, which wasn't even relatively scary one bit, just kept replaying and it got really annoying after awhile. The ending song (I forgot the title) sounded okay, but very similar to Room Of Angel.

I do understand this, but I feel as if I played too big a role in it and it became an annoyance after awhile. I'm not trying to bash the game in all honesty. I'm just pointing out some things I didn't like at all which, in this case, seems to be almost all of it. I just don't want to be looked at as a hater, y'know?

You can avoid most of the sex stuff, but yea, it's going to be really big in the story. It's not like the other games had barely any sexual stuff. And when you consider that [spoiler]the game is pretty much about Cheryl's twisted Oedipus Complex[/spoiler], the sex stuff is totally justified.

Quote:

Most of the music played in the game seemed rather annoying. ESPECIALLY in the woods right after you get out of the cop car when Cybil leaves. It will be quiet and then this really annoying noise, which wasn't even relatively scary one bit, just kept replaying and it got really annoying after awhile. The ending song (I forgot the title) sounded okay, but very similar to Room Of Angel.

There's more than one ending song, and the soundtrack was pretty much a remix of SH1's. They're not all that different.

I guess I'm just not really sure what the appeal is to this game. To start off with, the gameplay is absolutely hideous almost to the point where it's just unplayable. Part of this could be blamed on the fact that the wiimote just isn't responsive enough, but during the Otherworld scenes, if I got jumped on by more than two rawshocks, I just gave up and let myself die, because I knew from experience after a while that there was no way I was going to get them all off of me quickly enough for me to be able to run away again. I would get two off, and by the time I went to go throw off the last one, the first one I threw off would jump on my back again, or another one would run up and jump on me. It was ridiculously frustrating. Those scenes were so hectic and fast-paced that there wasn't any time to even so much as think (and that is just so wrong for a Silent Hill game, besides); you just had to run and keep on running and hope that you were going the right way, even though more often than not you weren't. But too bad for you, though, because it's the only choice you have, because if you pull up your GPS, you'll more likely than not get swarmed and die because it takes forever to turn off your phone. You CAN hide, but more often than not you SHOULDN'T, because they'll find you, and once they do, they're even HARDER to shake off than normal, as though it wasn't hard enough already. And knocking things over doesn't do you much good, either, considering the fact that the side throw is so dodgy and hard to do (at least when compared to the front or the back) that it only worked when it decided it wanted to anyway. More likely than not, you'll get swarmed while trying to knock things over, so it's best to just keep running and hope they don't catch up. I dreaded every single chase, and not in a good way-- not in the way dread is supposed to feel in a horror game, anyway. I dreaded it in a sort of way like, "Well, I look forward to being pissed off and dying at least once. Let's just get through this so I can encounter the next worst moment of my life."

Then, in the regular, snowy world, I was so painfully bored it teetered on the edge of ridiculous. People complained that Homecoming was railroaded, but this game takes that to staggering levels, and I can't seem to quite understand why fandom says it's okay for this game to do it but not Homecoming. I had a strategy guide for Shattered Memories, but I didn't even have to glance at it during the normal world parts, because they were THAT straightforward and streamlined. There were no puzzles in this world, and every key to every door was literally right outside of it, so there was absolutely no gratification for getting from place to place. You just did it because you knew you had to. There was no threat in this world, and whenever I was in it I felt safe. Safe is not a feeling I like to have in my horror games. I knew nothing could hurt me when I was outside of Otherworld, so there was no reason to be scared. Also, there was no real disturbing imagery in this game-- at least, not that I found-- it was literally just a mostly abandoned, snowy town. What's there to be afraid of? I jumped at my first echo interference and the first time the shadow of Cheryl appeared, but both of those things quickly lost their luster after the first time.

Aside from gameplay and atmosphere, the plot was paper thin, and I don't really get what the big deal was about it. I figured out who was really sitting in those therapy sessions after Lisa said that she mostly dates guys who look like her dad, since it was the second time we'd heard it from a woman in the game. I guess one of the big reasons I couldn't sympathize with Cheryl was because I, personally, had gone through pretty much everything she had as a little girl, and I turned out fine after. So sad for her, I guess, but I mostly felt like she needed to get the hell over it. Not only that, but the reveal was pretty damn cheesy in and of itself. "Why did you have to die?!" - are you kidding me? Maybe it was just badly delivered, but I really sort of reeled back with a sense of "wtf" when I heard it, and when Harry froze, it added to the cheese factor. I was still willing to still give it the benefit of the doubt, but then I got the sex & sirens ending, and I lost it. I nearly fell over laughing. Maybe it's because I couldn't get original canon!Harry out of my head, but PIMP DADDY HARRY MAKIN' A SEX TAPE WITH TWO BEAUTIFUL LADIES was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen in a video game. And that's just so not what I'd anticipated or wanted from a horror game-- especially a Silent Hill game.

In short, I can't understand why people love this game so much. It's not scary, not even a little bit, and shouldn't horror games.... be scary? The gameplay went from painstakingly boring to overwhelmingly frustrating with no middle ground at all. And the plot was really kind of thin and I felt absolutely nothing towards it.

And also, as a side note, I'm really getting sick of the whole "SURPRISE, THE MAIN CHARACTER IS CRAZY AND THEIR LOST LOVED ONE IS REALLY DEAD" thing going on in Silent Hill. It's so overdone now. It was shocking with SH2, it still kind of got me a little in Homecoming (though the reveal that Alex was crazy blindsided me way more than the fact that Josh was dead), and now it's been beaten into the ground with Shattered Memories.

If the Silent Hill series degenerates into more games like this one, I'm going to have to say farewell to it.

And since this is now in a review thread, I guess I should give it some numbers.

Story: 7.5/10 - it was a good effort, I just didn't like it
Gameplay: 4/10
Puzzles: lmfao what puzzles? 0/10???
Graphics: 8.5/10 - looked pretty good actually!
Music: 7/10 - honestly I didn't even notice it, which is kind of bad for an SH game

OVERALL: 5.5/10

The lack of unlockables also severely killed this game's rating in my eyes, too.

_________________"Remember how people look in "The Ring" after Samara gets 'em? SH2 does something similar, only you get fat, sweaty and belligerent." - pianotheme @ livejournal

Unlockables killed the game?I don't understand what you mean. Unlockables are extra content that doesn't change anything but the appearance of the main character. Big Whoop. I think the way you could change the monsters made up for a lot of the stuff. The game was great in every way

Unlockables = more replay value. Considering this game is bad enough as it is and I don't want to replay it to begin with, the fact that there's no extra incentive with unlockables really isn't helping its case.

_________________"Remember how people look in "The Ring" after Samara gets 'em? SH2 does something similar, only you get fat, sweaty and belligerent." - pianotheme @ livejournal